When Atheists Attack (Each Other)

The squabble between Darwin lobbyists who openly hate religion and those who only quietly disdain it grows ever more personal, bitter and pathetic. On one side, evangelizing New or "Gnu" (ha ha) Atheists like Jerry Coyne and his acolytes at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne is a biologist who teaches and ostensibly researches at the University of Chicago but has a heck of a lot of free time on his hands for blogging and posting pictures of cute cats.

On the other side, so-called accommodationists like the crowd at the National Center for Science Education, who attack the New Atheists for the political offense of being rude to religious believers and supposedly messing up the alliance between religious and irreligious Darwinists.

I say "supposedly" because there's no evidence any substantial body of opinion is actually being changed on religion or evolution by anything the open haters or the quiet disdainers say. Everyone seems to seriously think they're either going to defeat religion, or merely "creationism," or both by blogging for an audience of fellow Darwinists.

Want to see what I mean? This is all pretty strictly a battle of stinkbugs in a bottle. Try to follow it without getting a headache.

Coyne recently drew excited applause from fellow biologist-atheist-blogger PZ Myers for Coyne's "open letter" (published on his blog) to the NCSE and its British equivalent, the British Centre for Science Education. In the letter, Coyne took umbrage at criticism of the New Atheists, mostly on blogs, emanating from the two accommodationist organizations. He vowed that,

We will continue to answer the misguided attacks [on the New Atheists] by people like Josh Rosenau, Roger Stanyard, and Nick Matzke so long as they keep mounting those attacks.

Like the NCSE, the BCSE seeks to pump up Darwin in the public mind without scaring religious people. This guy called Stanyard at the BCSE complains of losing a night's sleep over the nastiness of the rhetoric on Coyne's blog. Coyne in turn complained that Stanyard complained that a blog commenter complained that Nick Matzke, formerly of the NCSE, is like "vermin." Coyne also hit out at blogger Jason Rosenhouse for an "epic"-length blog post complaining of New Atheist "incivility." In the blog, Rosenhouse, who teaches math at James Madison University, wrote an update about how he had revised an insulting comment about the NCSE's Josh Rosenau that he, Rosenhouse, made in a previous version of the post.

That last bit briefly confused me. In occasionally skimming the writings of Jason Rosenhouse and Josh Rosenau in the past, I realized now I had been assuming they were the same person. They are not!

It goes on and on. In the course of his own blog post, Professor Coyne disavowed name-calling and berated Stanyard (remember him? The British guy) for "glomming onto" the Matzke-vermin insult like "white on rice, or Kwok on a Leica." What's a Kwok? Not a what but a who -- John Kwok, presumably a pseudonym, one of the most tirelessly obsessive commenters on Darwinist blog sites. Besides lashing at intelligent design, he often writes of his interest in photographic gear such as a camera by Leica. I have the impression that Kwok irritates even fellow Darwinists.

There's no need to keep all the names straight in your head. I certainly can't. I'm only taking your time, recounting just a small part of one confused exchange, to illustrate the culture of these Darwinists who write so impassionedly about religion, whether for abolishing it or befriending it. Writes Coyne in reply to Stanyard,

I'd suggest, then, that you lay off telling us what to do until you've read about our goals. The fact is that we'll always be fighting creationism until religion goes away, and when it does the fight will be over, as it is in Scandinavia.

A skeptic might suggest that turning America into Scandinavia, as far as religion goes, is an outsized goal, more like a delusion, for this group as they sit hunched over their computers shooting intemperate comments back and forth at each other all day. Or in poor Stanyard's case, all night.

There's a feverish, terrarium-like and oxygen-starved quality to this world of online Darwinists and atheists. It could only be sustained by the isolation of the Internet. They don't seem to realize that the public accepts Darwinism to the extent it does -- which is not much -- primarily because of what William James would call the sheer, simple "prestige" that the opinion grants. Arguments and evidence have little to do with it.

The prestige of Darwinism is not going to be affected by how the battle between Jerry Coyne and the NCSE turns out. New Atheist arguments are hobbled by the same isolation from what people think and feel. I have not yet read anything by any of these gentlemen or ladies, whether the open haters or the quiet disdainers, that conveys anything like a real comprehension of religious feeling or thought.

Even as they fight over the most effective way to relate to "religion," the open atheists and the accomodationists speak of an abstraction, a cartoon, that no actual religious person would recognize. No one is going to be persuaded if he doesn't already wish to be persuaded for other personal reasons. No faith is under threat from the likes of Jerry Coyne.

An interesting question but a false assumption since it asks that I know everything before I can know anything.

The only thing that's false is your misreading of what I wrote. I said "how can you know the Truth unless you know everything there is to know?". You can know a lot of things, but that's not knowing everything there is to know, which is what The Truth is, and all encompassing knowledge of everything as it truly is. Only your hypothetical deity knows the Truth. You "know" it through belief (assumption, presupposition) in such a deity. But, just because you (choose to) believe something doesn't mean it's true.

Thereby all is belief and there can be no knowledge, only belief

No, not all. We know that hot stove hurts, how some drugs work, or that things fall on earth due to gravity, etc. You could say we know how a TV works, but we don't. We only know how to make it work by pressing the "on" or "power" button, but on average your typical TV user has no clue how his TV set works any more than the cave man knew what caused thunder or lightening. Typically, faced with a mystery, the cave man assumed it was God being angry! Little has changed since that time as far as osme people "explaining" the mysteries.

When it comes to deities, the certainty becomes even less than that of a TV or a lightening. In the case of gods, even how , when or if faith "works" or "does" becomes a matter of belief, or actually blind hope, like playing the slot machines.

Come on, cyc, let's stop pretending, I think every reasonable human being in the back of his or her head knows that if you pray really, really, really hard you won't walk on water or float into the air if you step off the Empire State building any more than if I prey really, really, really hard the pink unicorns from Jupiter will not appear! And no one even tries to walk on water or float into he air unless you are part of some magician trickster show."

I can understand that little self-deceptions are sometimes comforting and perhaps even psychologically necessary, but they have no basis in reality or reliability that we can depend on.

Does imperfect or partial knowledge equal belief? If so then then my knowledge that gravity will act on me is only belief and one belief is just as good or bad as another, mere opinion since there is much about gravity I don't know.

LOL. Did you really think this through? Gravity is independent of your belief. You can deny gravity all your want, you are stuck on earth with the rest of us. In fact there is no need to "believe" in gravity. It's not that it "will" act on you but the fact that it does act on you. When you start floating around like Peter Pan let me know. And, while you are at it, don't take my word not to touch hot stove tops. Go ahead and disbelieve!

You say,
“There is a difference between knowing and believing”. So what is it?....if you have some way of determining such.

Sure there is. I can reasonably expect or believe that my car will start when I turn the ignition key, but I don't (and can't) know for sure that it will. The reason I can believe, as a matter of probability, that my car will start is because it is a working model that proves itself by working when the key is turned on pretty much the way your TV comes on when you press the "on" button. But just because I believe it will turn on doesn't mean it will. Belief is not the same as knowing for sure.

However, the confidence of your belief is not in blind hopes but in the number of times the car does work and in knowing what makes it not work (certainly not prayer!). In other words—on reasonable expectations, and not because your used car salesman told you so.

I was only repeating the lame thing you wrote. I am glad you realize it is lame. That's progress.

No, you didn't repeat what I wrote. You twisted what you wrote and tried to place it in my voice. Unable to sustain the arguement you have to be deceptive. Not surprising from the atheistic mindset.

You knowledge can not be a fairytale...Either it is true or not. Now, you claim that you know God exists. If so prove it. But first you will have to tell me what God is.

Ah yes, it is the old wore out "prove God exists" challenge. Once again - as you've already shown on this thread you consider no proof to be good enough for you.

What "God is" is contained in the person of Jesus Christ. Once again - as well documented in this thread, you have refused that defintion because you refuse to accept the historicity of His existance, teachings and claims. Your know it all but don't know anything complex rears its head again.

You prefer the safety of denial and call it 'mythology' to remove yourself from the moral obligations Jesus exposes in you.

As mm noted - it would be nice to see intellectual honesty from the atheist side of the house for once.

“You can know a lot of things, but that's not knowing everything there is to know, which is what The Truth is, and all encompassing knowledge of everything as it truly is.”

You're offering your definition of “The Truth” and requirements for knowing it. But it it not a reasonable or logical definition by any means, not even by your own examples of a hot stove and knowing some part of an “all encompassing knowledge” about it.
Knowing that it will burn and cause pain is not the totality of possible knowledge about the hot stove but it is most certainly the truth about it even if partial.
So I didn't misread your comment but just extended it to its illogical end.

“Only your hypothetical deity knows the Truth.You “know” it (the truth) through belief (assumption, presupposition) in such a deity”

Not so. Practical experience produces knowledge that the belief is so just as I can teach and the student can believe the stove is hot but the experience of being very close or touching it produces knowledge.
Partial knowledge to be sure but knowledge just the same and not just belief.

Your comment says,
“The only thing that's false is your misreading of what I wrote. I said “how can you know the Truth unless you know everything there is to know?”.

I will say again: Knowing something (the Truth) even partially is not the same as belief and even the very simplest of reasoning should make that clear, as I have.

To the Christian what Christ called “the Truth” is the definition that counts most.

“Come on, cyc, let's stop pretending,...”

That's a good start....What sort of pretense am I engaged in and What sort are you? In either order, thank you.

But people are not always reasonable in what they ask for or demand or pray for or in the acceptance of not getting what they want. They don't get what they ask for so it's a rigged game.
Isn't it terrible that God operates by His own rules and doesn't ask for suggestions or take votes anymore than a general would from the recruits in boot camp.

“I can understand that little self-deceptions are sometimes comforting and perhaps even psychologically necessary, but they have no basis in reality or reliability that we can depend on.”

You said, ‘let's stop pretending’ so what little self deceptions that are comforting and “psychologically necessary” do agnostics (or atheists) engage in?

What does QM have to do with Truth? It seems to me QM deals only with what we can know, given the constraints of the observational situation.

So very true, dearest sister in Christ!

Once again I am reminded of the extension of pi.

If an observer were to look at any series of numbers from the extension of pi he might presume they are just random numbers.

And he would be wrong since calculating the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter (c/d) will always produce the same numbers in the same position.

The observer would be even further from "truth" not realizing that the geometry of a circle described by that calculation is universal in space/time.

Nor would he perceive a deeper revelation "in" the geometry - namely that the form of a circle is every point on a plane equidistant from a center point. There must be the center. And for the sum of all points equidistant to it, there is no beginning and no end.

For that reason, the circle is the Christian sign of eternity, e.g. often mentioned in wedding ceremonies when rings are exchanged.

I think through everything I say, kosta, everything. I didn't “deny gravity”, implying that I did is silly, and you should stop it.

Gravity is indeed independent of my belief AND knowledge too. That force we call gravity is not understood in every way no matter how times we see it's operation. But our limited understanding doesn’t change the “truth”, that it exists and affects us. This we know by experience, our own and others before us.
It operated on your proverbial ‘caveman’ who knew very little of it and, based upon experience, we believe it will operate on those in the future who will know more of it.

But you said earlier:

“How can you know the Truth unless you know everything there is to know? As long as you don't know something, you are guessing, hoping, believing, but not knowing.”

So by your above comment I can guess, hope, believe but never “know” gravity is going to operate in the future.

“And, while you are at it, don't take my word not to touch hot stove tops. Go ahead and disbelieve!”

“Your word” is your belief since you can never know by your definitions.
Actually I have touched very hot stove tops without harm, and not by wearing gloves either.

“However, the confidence of your belief is not in blind hopes but in the number of times the car does work and in knowing what makes it not work (certainly not prayer!). In other words—on reasonable expectations, and not because your used car salesman told you so.”

Probability established by experience converts belief into knowing? Into confident belief? Or is it a matter of defining belief vs. knowing?

Now is your turn to porvide credible documents showing that the Apostles really did die the way the legends say. I provide only a sample of tons of sources that show it is a myth. Provide historical documents (please, not Eusebius!) or don't bother replying.

http://www.csj.org.uk/apostle.htm The legend of St. James

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_the_Apostle The legend of Jude

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James,_son_of_Zebedee The legend of James

http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/whandintro.htm "The Cult and Legend of St. Andrew"

http://books.google.com/books?id=THEqAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA611&lpg=PA611&dq=apostles+martyrdom+legend&source=bl&ots=5J2tt8bNLP&sig=hE8Mempcxg0a7Y-Xfnzp-Oov9IA&hl=en&ei=Pc7XTezFD4KXtwervIToDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=apostles%20martyrdom%20legend&f=false Catholic encyclopedia

http://anglicanprayer.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/apostles-martyrdom/ Anglican source

http://www.vision.org/visionmedia/article.aspx?id=18200 anti-Cathoic site

From http://freetruth.50webs.org/B2c.htm

Fictional martyrdom stories for the fictional Twelve

"In the time of Tertullian and Clemens of Alexandria [late 2nd - early 3rd centuries] the glory of martyrdom was confined to St Peter, St Paul and St James.
It was gradually bestowed on the rest of the apostles by the more recent Greeks, who prudently selected for the theatre of their preaching and sufferings some remote country beyond the limits of the Roman empire."
– Edward Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

the martyrdom of Peter is generally rejected, and is not claimed until about 170 [the year 170 CE]
-- The Story of Religious Controversy, by Joseph McCabe

Ridiculous, conflicting or multiple death scenarios invented for many of the apostles, including:

The Fabricated Deaths of the Apostles
Peter (aka Simon, Cephas)
"Beheaded by Nero?" No, not really. This legend was dreamed up by the mid-2nd century pope Anicetus (156-166).
3rd century invention gave him a 25-year pontificate – which made it a tad tricky for him to have died at the hands of Nero. 3rd century Church Father Origen dreamed up a colourful flourish: Peter, feeling himself unworthy to be crucified the same way as his Lord, chose option 'B' – crucifixion upside down!
Bartholomew (Nathanael)
What a traveller – India, Persia, Armenia, Ethiopia and southern Arabia! Miraculously he managed to get himself crucified in both India and Armenia.
Matthew (Levi) [- not the Levi, son of Alphæus]
Credited with 15 years in Jerusalem, then missions to Persia and Ethiopia and, of course, martyrdom in both places.
Thomas Didymus (the Twin)
Another grand traveller, seen everywhere from Parthia to Kerala in south India. 4th century invention, appropriately enough, gives this 'twin' 2 martyrdoms, one in Persia and one in India. He even gets a burial in Syria to boot! Yet another resting place, Mylapore, was claimed by the Portuguese in the 16th century.
Jude/Thaddeus /Lebbaeus /Daddaeus
Either a serious clubbing or crucifixion for this mixed up guy in the city of Edessa or Persia.
Simon the Canaanite/ the Zealot
Invention came late for this guy. When it did, it was a beauty – crucifixion in Persia and also crucifixion thousands of miles away in Britain. He also managed to preach in Africa. Quite an act to follow.
Matthias
Death by burning. Also death in Jerusalem by stoning – and beheading. Really just makes up the numbers, sometimes merging with Matthew and sometimes swapped out to let Paul into "the twelve."Luke
"Hanged on an olive tree." Or, "lived to the age of 84 and died unmarried."
Body parts claimed by both Padua and Constantinople.

From: The "12 Apostles" – Fabricated followers of a fabricated Saviour has more, including the multiple deaths invented for the treacherous Judas Iscariot.

12 or more tombs for one Apostle:

There are six tombs for St. Thomas in South India. Two are in San Thome Cathedral at Mylapore, a third on an island southwest of Cochin, a fourth in a Syrian church at Tiruvancode in Travancore, a fifth in a Shiva temple at Malayattur in Travancore, and a sixth at Kalayamuthur west of Madurai near the Palani Hills. There are also six tombs for St. Thomas abroad. One is in Brazil, a second in Germany, a third in Japan, a fourth in Malacca, a fifth in Tibet, and a sixth in China.
But this is not the end of the matter of tombs. ...
...
The "martyred" St. Thomas has existed since the Acts of Thomas, ca. 210 C.E., in which he is executed by King Mazdai for social crimes and sorcery. The Portuguese added the Brahmin assassin after 1517.

You twisted what you wrote and tried to place it in my voice

Yeah, that's it, because big G says so/s.

Ah yes, it is the old wore out "prove God exists" challenge

Well, if you make the claim, prove it or shut your trap!

Once again - as you've already shown on this thread you consider no proof to be good enough for you.

What proof? Just because your say something is doesn't constitute a proof.

What "God is" is contained in the person of Jesus Christ.

I understand that that's your belief, not a fact or proof that that is really so.

Once again - as well documented in this thread, you have refused that definition because you refuse to accept the historicity of His existence, teachings and claims.

I accept it as your belief, not as a proof that that it is true.

Your know it all but don't know anything complex rears its head again.

G, just because you believe something doesn't make it true. That's not "know it all", that's just common sense. You proved nothing. You have nothing.

You're offering your definition of “The Truth” and requirements for knowing it.

Not really. If it is capitalized, by English convention, it represents the universal, all encompassing truth. There are "little "truths we can now, but to know the truth, we would have to know everything there is to know.

To the Christian what Christ called “the Truth” is the definition that counts most

I can understand that (that's why they are Christians!), but what did he mean by the Truth?

But people are not always reasonable in what they ask for or demand or pray for or in the acceptance of not getting what they want

Why is praying for a cancer cure any more "reasonable" than praying to get a new limb? Surely God can do both? Don't you think? Yet there are no "miraculous" reports of a paraplegic growing new limbs after fervent prayer, but there are alleged cancer cures associated with prayer. Is there something God doens't like about limbs? I think it disingenuous to talk about "reasonable" when it comes to prayer; after all, they tell me, with God everythign is possible!

You said, ‘let's stop pretending’ so what little self deceptions that are comforting and “psychologically necessary” do agnostics (or atheists) engage in?

I can't think of any.

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